There is one thing that protects a website against Google Bowling - a solid backlink profile of its own. The more your "real" quality backlinks grow, the less anyone else's malicious actions can affect it.

Can you Google Bowl the NY Times or Wall Street Journal out of the index? Can you Google Bowl top notch quality sites out of the index? Of course, "quality sites" are a very subjective thing and that is where things get messy.

But I agree with Tedster, the best way to prevent a Google Bowling attempt is to have a very solid back link profile.

Senior Member, CainIV, added:

A diverse, quality source of backlinks helps protect against this. The more quality backlinks you have over time, the less percentage of new links there will be pointed at you in comparison to existing links. The more trusted the website is, the more 'iffy' inbound links it can absorb.

I think this is why Googlers keep suggesting that SEOs and Webmasters focus on their own site and not worry about competitors.